i feel as if i’ve listened to Midnights and Evermore back to back
i think jack and taylor have pushed each other as far as they can as collaborators in regards to a whole album, and certainly in this musical direction. taylor certainly seems to write a lot of hits with jack—fortnight and the title track are destined to be huge—but over the course of a whole album his production for taylor has become washed out, repetitive and limp—despite a few new synth flourishes added to their audible pallet along the way
in spite of what twitter might have you believe, jack antonoff is a great producer and taylor swift is a great songwriter, but neither are pushing each other to reach their best work anymore, a fact which becomes particularly noticeable when contrasted with the primarily aaron dessner produced “anthology” tracks; this is when taylor comes closest to reaching the heights of folklore and evermore, and the beautifully subdued production of Evermore—all but one track of which was produced by dessner—is a far better fit for taylor than the often limp synthpop of the non-deluxe Midnights. taylor’s lyrics and songwriting seem far less overwrought and far more natural on the “anthology”, and dessner’s production brings out a beautiful quality in taylor’s voice that jack’s production often can’t. jack tends to wash out taylor’s vocals with his preferred reverb effects, where as dessner’s subtle production allows taylor’s voice to float effortlessly over the instrumentation. disappointingly, jack’s production on the florence & the machine collaboration Florida also seems lacking, with florence’s vocals on the second verse seemingly being levelled too quietly in comparison to taylor’s on the first. i like the collaboration for the most part, but it does sound a little disjointed, as if all three of them were in three separate locations while piecing it together. it is a bit of a disappointment to me after florence and jack’s great work together on Dance Fever
in simplistic terms, i view producers like camera lenses that capture the beautiful work of an artist, sometimes highlighting things about an artist’s work that they themselves couldn’t see. no camera is able to capture the beauty of every scene. a camera suited for concert photography will not serve a deep sea photographer. disposable film cameras can take beautiful candids, but they wouldn’t be of much use to a nature photographer. lately all of jack’s best work as a primary producer has been on *more* guitar-focused albums, such as Sling, Folklore, Dance Fever, and Ocean Blvd; that’s the kind of music that his “lens” best captures. i think taylor and jack can push each other further as a collaborative duo, but not purely under the label of synthpop. i think taylor can make a great “synthpop” album, but not with jack as the primary producer; ultimately he should be brought in as a guest producer on such an album. if we were to have another album with jack as a prominent producer i think it should be in service of a more guitar-focused “rock” album, as i think it’s one of the only directions taylor can move to stop her sound becoming stale and repetitive, as any great artist’s sound would become if they (or their collaborators) failed to push their sound. or else i think she should continue making beautiful folk-tinged pop music with aaron dessner, with jack coming in as a guest producer to bring out the hit singles
taylor is the biggest artist in the world and has full agency over her songwriting and musical output, i just think she needs to try out a few more “cameras”
a full list of tracks i liked the most on the first listen:
fortnight
tortured poets department
so long, london
florida
gulilty as sin
loml
but daddy i love him
clara bow (my favourite)
the albatross
chloe or sam or sophia or marcus
how did it end?
i hate it here
cassandra
peter
the bolter